Murano and more Venice...day 9

Venice Travel Blog

So sad...today is our last day in Italy! We get up to have breakfast and I feel like I am imposing on the old man there. I am the only one there and the food (bread) is not even out yet. I drink orange juice as slow as possible to allow him to catch up. He brings me food (bread) about the time Angela comes out for breakfast...fifteen minutes later. This is the worst breakfast we have had, but what are you gonna do?

For our last day here I wanted to see Burano (the fishing village with the colorful houses) and Murano (where they make glass), but it was not in the cards for both. So we decided on Murano. We walked out to catch our Water Bus that says it's going to Murano.

Glass Flowers

We go all over Venice...I mean all over...we are on the bus for a good hour and 15 minutes and then it comes right back to where we originally caught it. Confused, we get off and then watch it pull away and go to Murano. ARGGHHH!

Take 2 works out much better for us and we head to Murano. It is a scorcher of a day so we get Italian Ice to cool ourselves off. I probably would have enjoyed Murano better, but I was feeling like crap. Even still, this island is amazing! The glass that you can purchase here astounds. If I had more money and a reliable way to get it home I would have cleaned up shop. There is store after store of amazing glass products: tea sets, chandeliers, jewelry, decorative pieces, artwork.

Making glass jewelry

...and on and on. I thought it was interesting that there were signs in the windows saying to not purchase from stores that sold Chinese glass. I don't know how you would know, but I decided if it didn't have a sticker on it saying made in Murano...i wasn't buying it... after all, I can buy Chinese glass in the US.

We stayed on Murano for a good 3 hours maybe more and decided to head back to the main island for lunch. We ate at a cheap place right by our hotel and I finally ordered Lasagna. And it was disgusting! For one thing, it was freezing cold, which they must have known, because when I called him over he said, "Is it too cold?" Uh yeah! So then he brings it back and says "Be careful, It is very very hot." Now, I don't know how they eat there lasagna here in Italy, but it was still just lukewarm.

Me and Murano

I ate it regardless, but I was very very disappointed.

We had no additional real plans for the day other than wanting t have a good dinner over by Rialto Bridge. We spent the rest of the day wandering around Venice taking pictures and finishing up souvenir shopping. We (actually just Angela) also needed to find an internet cafe to make final decisions about how we were going to make it back to the states. We found a place for dinner that had a really charming set-up by the Grand Canal and where the host let us move around to stay away from the smokers. We kind of splurged on this meal and I decided to get lasagna again. I shouldn't have. It was still gross, it was way creamier than I like lasagna to be and rather bland tasting. We did however, have fantastic tiramisu and a decent wine, so it was all good.

yummy tiramisu

We had an interesting time finding our way back, because once again things looked different. This time, the areas on our side of town were so bustling and full of people that we couldn't even recognize the streets as the same deserted ones from the day before. I guess the Italians must really not do much on Sunday because it was empty and shut-up then, but today, on Monday...it was chaos. We found an internet cafe and Angela got on while I just wandered around marveling at how different things looked and felt.

Once Ang was done we headed back to the hotel for our last night in Venice. We spent most of the night deciding what to keep and what had to go, and separating all the things that we might need if we were stuck in some other city for a couple days. We had to catch a water bus at 340 am so we weren't really going to be sleeping much. My stomach was a ball of knots wondering what the next day or so would hold. We joked that the trip was ending, but the adventure was about to begin....End of day 9